I was on camp guard all last night, on the second relief.
Troops were coming in all night. This morning about daylight the Sixth Division
was ordered out, and marching out about two miles to the northwest, we met the
rebels in force and formed a line of battle. Our pickets having been attacked
about sunrise, the battle now commenced in earnest and lasted all day. There
was some hard fighting in the afternoon, particularly off on the right, and our
men soon fell back to the first line of breastworks. About 3 p. m. the Iowa
Brigade was flanked and had to fall back to the second line of breastworks, but
the brigade, with the exception of the Fifteenth Regiment, did not get into the
thick of the fight.1 The fighting continued till dark, and after
that there was some very heavy cannonading.
__________
1 The record of the losses of our
brigade is as follows:
The Fifteenth, eleven killed, sixteen wounded; the Thirteenth, one killed,
fourteen wounded; the Sixteenth, one killed, twenty-one wounded; the Eleventh,
three killed, eight wounded. — A. G. D.
Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B.,
Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 72-3
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